


An American Demonslayer In Paris

by Missy



Category: Army of Darkness (1992), Evil Dead (Movies), Evil Dead - All Media Types, How I Met Your Mother
Genre: Demons, F/M, Family, Horror, Humor, Kid Fic, Paris (City), Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:04:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ash has survived amputation, demonic possession, temporary insanity, and the loss of nearly ever person who's close to him.  Now he faces his greatest challenge: playing stay-at-home dad to two kids while his wife takes an internship in Paris.  Oh, and trying to stop a cult of Necronomicon worshipers from resurrecting a powerful demon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part Une

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GypsyJr (HippieGeekGirl)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HippieGeekGirl/gifts).



When the phone rings, he’s wrist-deep in a pan of Rice Krispie treats.

“Damn it…hello?”

“Ash?”

“Ben?” The shock forces him upright, and he smacks his head against the underside of the kitchen cabinet.

“The one and only! So, how’s Paris treating you?”

“Meh,” Ash remarks, slathering Emily’s fingers with butter as she works the crackling mixture into balls, her concentration intense. “Haven’t seen much of the city – been too busy taking care of the kids and unpacking.”

“I still can’t get over the idea of you living in France.”

“Neither can I…”

“Daddy,” Emily pipes, “can I have the sprinkles?”

He grabs the bottle of multicolored nonpareils and hands them to her – instantly, it’s covered in a smeary marshmallow-y cover of transparent white goo.

When he puts the receiver back up to his ear, Ben’s saying, “…luck finding a job?”

“I’m looking.” That translates to ‘the job market sucks as much here as it does in America.’ “We’re living off of Sheila’s grant money ‘til I find something.”

“So…you’re not working, and you’re spending your whole day taking care of the kids…”

Ash’s teeth grind together. “Don’t. Say. It.”

“Dude, you’re a –“

“I AM NOT A HOUSEWIFE!” he yells, and instantly wakes up the once-slumbering Jake. “Sunuvabitch,” he mutters, as the baby wails in his playpen.

“That’s a bad word,” Emily notes.

Ash groans. “Can you call me back?”

“Sure thing, Mary Poppins!”

He clicks the phone off and heads to Jake’s playpen, picking him up, discovering that his Pampers are soaked through. With one eye on the baby and one eye on the girl, Ash manages to change the boy’s diaper and keep up a conversation with Emily about her new Babar book while plotting the night’s dinner and contemplating the vacuuming and breakfast dishes.

In the middle of this, he pauses, utter horror washing over him.

Damn it.

 _He IS a housewife!_

***

“You skipped a part, daddy,” notes Emily soberly.

“I did not!” Ash lies. She’s cuddled against his side, her sticky fingers clutching the edges of her copy of “The Monster at the End of this Book”.

“Yes you did! It goes like this…” She promptly recited the entirety of the two pages he’s managed to skip over. “Let me read it, daddy. You look sleepy.”

“I’m not sleepy,” he grouses, watching absently as Jake play with a stack of blocks. He nudges the playpen a little closer to their single space heater and pushed closed the heavy wainscoted curtains Sheila had sewn for the move. It was late March – at least three weeks before spring would (hopefully) arrive.

“Yes you are! And you’re very cranky,” she notices. Without further prompting, she proceeds to read the rest of the book to him. “See, daddy? The monster at the end of the book is you…” she holds up the tiny mirror, his face reflecting back in the shiny surface. Ash winces at the reflection, but this double doesn’t threaten his life. Emily’s giving him a strange look. “Mommy says you shouldn’t be scared of mirrors.”

“I’m not scared of mirrors.”

“Mommy’s wrong?” asks Emily, her little face scrunching in confusion.

“No, kitten,” Ash tells her, patting her side. “Mommy’s never wrong.” _And daddy will never admit it to her._ He picks her up and deposits her on the chair. “Wanna hear some music?”

She claps her hands. “Beatles, Beatles, Beatles!”

“Aww, don’t you wanna hear something GOOD? Like the Carpenters?”

“BEATLES!” she shouts, encouraging their next-door neighbor to drum against the wall.

Ash inherited, on the death of his mother, the largest collection of records in the known universe, mostly acid rock and stuff from the folk revival. He can’t stomach most of them (he’d spent untold childhood hours having “Hurdy Gurdy Man” drummed into his head), but The Beatles are always good music, no matter how much he may dose himself with equal measures of classics and hard rock.

He picks up the single, flips it - A Side up – onto his old hi-fi, and drops the needle.

He settles down with his daughter, a cup of black coffee close at hand.

Once upon at time, he could play this song…

 _“Hey Jude, don’t make it bad. Take a sad song, and make it better…”_

“Jake’s name is this song,” Emily notices, climbing off of Ash’s lap because her crayons have called her. She pulls a pile of scrap paper off of the end table and lies down on the floor, her green clogs wiggling in mid-air as she props herself up and starts to draw.

“Um-hm,” Ash notes, heading into the kitchen – time to start dinner. He’s never been so glad for the existence of frozen food.

Jake is Jake Jude (Jake, not Jacob – Ash was Very Clear on this when his birth certificate was filled out), because it amused Sheila, the notion of one of their children having a “J” name in the middle. Jake had been a crash cesarean - Sheila, in Ash’s opinion, had earned the right to name the kid whatever she wanted.

“Ms. Lily says you should always wash your hands before you touch food.”

Ash barks out a laugh. “Ms. Lily’s right – but just this once…”

“Daddy!”

He growls, washes his (left) hand quickly and begins shoving the frozen pot pies into the oven.

 _So let it out and let it in…_

“Guns are wrong,” Emily says abruptly. “Ms. Lily says someone hurt John Lennon with a gun.”

The plastic bag of peas pops open, scattering little frozen green orbs all over the countertop. The reminder that she’s someone else, with entirely different opinions, suddenly blooms within his mind. The door swings open, and he sighs in relief.

“There’s mommy!”

Sheila is swamped in kisses by her daughter before Ash can get the peas in a pot; when he reaches the two of them, Emily has already told Sheila all about her day in kindergarten and begins begging for a dance. Soon they’re sweeping around the room, dancing in the manner Sheila used when she attended court, spinning themselves dizzy while Ash keeps an eye on the stove, the boy, the record player.

The day has suckled the marrow of his bones. He wants a gallon of wine and kiss from his wife.

He claims the second with little trouble, but the peas boil over before he can contemplate where he’s stored the “welcome to Paris” bottle of Chablis.

***

She washes the dishes while he tucks the children into their new beds (Mister Lion must learn to be nicer to Miss Spider if he wants to share Emily’s pillow). Sheila pours the wine, hands him a glass, sitting comfortable close together on the sofa as one of his Sinatra albums plays softly in the background.

“Twas a fine repast, milord,” she smiles, twirling the wine near the light. He watches her face, amused by the changes in her, unused to the sight of her in fawn-colored pants and a pale pink shirt. Her hair’s tied up again (he hates it that way – his frustration usually results in a carpet strewn with bobby pins. The resultant argument over which of them should pick the little metal buggers up is usually solved by the vacuum cleaner), and it gleams a red-brown in the soft light.

“I burned the peas,” he grumbles, then stops and stares at his own half-empty glass. Is that REALLY his voice? When the fuck had he turned into Betty Crocker?

She pats his thigh. “Tis not bad for a first try,” she informs him, leaning into side. His left arm comes around her shoulders, pulling her even closer to him.

“The first time you used a stove,” he points out, “you almost burned down my apartment.”

Her expression firms slightly, her gaze sharpening. “Twas merely off by two degrees,” she points out.

“I lost a pan and a set of curtains.” He replies.

“La. But both were ugly.”

He can only shake his head at her. Were she Linda he would have worn her down over a matter of seconds. Sheila fights him all the way, for days if not hours, her opinions and attitudes a vitally important part of her being. With Linda, he made all of the decisions; with Sheila, he’s learned to ask her what she wants or risk her passionate anger. The middle ground is a new place for him, one he’s not entirely sure he’s comfortable with.

Another pause. He usually avoids even thinking about Linda…

“So,” he asks – smoothly pulling his hand along Sheila’s shoulders, rubbing the back of her neck – “how was class?”

This leads to a rant about her professor, an apparent incompetent. Not the direction he’d hoped for. She’s ranting on and on and he’s getting more and more impatient until finally he pulls her backward and plants a kiss on he mouth.

Her eyes opened, unfocused, when he lifts his mouth away. “Ye’re a terrible rogue.”

A shrug. “You look like you wanna be kissed.”

“Praytell, what about my countenance suggested this?”

“Your eyes were saying ‘please, Ash! Make me forget all about that mean, evil professor with your tongue!’” He delivers that statement in a breathy voice that’s reaching for “porn star” but really sounds like “Harvey Fierstein impersonator”. He wiggles his brows lamely, resting his forehead against hers before going in for the kiss.

She melts against him. He’s roughly plucking away at the bobby pins and unbuttoning her shirt at the same time. “Ashley,” she says, pushing him a few inches away, “the bedroom, love?”

“No. Here,” he says. He prays she doesn’t want anything more coherent.

The pins scatter over the living room floor.

No arguments tonight – they stay where they land.

***

He wakens in the middle of the night – the needle is skipping, the album at an end. He’ll get up later, shut off the player. Sheila’s a tempting, lovely weight against his side – he just wants to stay in this embrace, under the throw, for the rest of his breathing days.

The sound is imperceptible to the human ear. It prickles the hair on the back of his neck, until he forcibly blocks it out. _Just the wind,_ he decides against his instincts.

He sleeps, unable to hear the whisper, tuning it out for his own sanity.

But it’s still there.

 _“Join us…Join us…Join us…”_


	2. Part Deux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Typical scenes, new scenery...

Emily comes home from kindergarten that afternoon with a very sad observation. “Frogs can’t fly.”

Ash bites back a laugh as he plunks Jake into his highchair. “You’re not supposed to throw them out the window,” he says, fetching snacks from the counter –Rice Krispie treats and milk for them both, and pureed peas for Jake.

When he turns back toward Emily, her expression makes him laugh – she’s displaying that peculiar seriousness again, that combination of dignity and self-preservation that lives within himself and Sheila. “I didn’t, daddy. Ms Lily says that frogs can’t fly, and she knows ‘cause she used to see them when she lived in Sam Francisco.”

“San Francisco,” he corrects, tempting Jake with a spoonful of green goo. The little boy whines, turning his head away and reaching for Ash’s uneaten snack. _I know, kiddo,_ Ash thinks to himself, _but it’s this crap or nothing ‘til you sprout some teeth._

“Ms. Lily went to art school in San Francisco,” Emily says, picking up a red crayon and bending over her homework. “She drew the Golden Gate Bridge and travelled on the trolley cars.”

He hears the adventurous whist in the little girls’ voice and feels a part of himself age about a million years. Ash just grunts as an acknowledgement, gives up on getting any of the peas in Jake’s mouth, and begins sponging off the counter. “Do your homework.”

She has a mimeographed activity sheet to complete before tomorrow morning. “This is so boring,” Emily complains, her crayons grinding against the paper. Ash isn’t surprised she finds coloring in little circles a dull project, as she already knows her colors and can read pretty well. He doesn’t want to break her heart with the truth about school and how boring all that time cooped up in a little room can be. She responsibly moves her homework out of the way once it’s completed, then tells him, “I need another red one.”

Ash turns around and notices she’s been drawing again – stick figure portraits of himself and his more notorious exploits. He grimaces. “Don’t bring that to school.”

“OH!” Emily reaches into her backpack, pulling out a note and placing it on the table. “Ms. Lily says you need to come see her tomorrow.”

Ash sees the pink note with its formally-written request for an afterschool meeting and his stomach sinks.

Emily just beams. “Ms. Lily says I’m VERY creative.”

***

Ella Fitzgerald fits the moody rain-soaked afternoon, with its “Irished-up” coffee and puzzle play. Fifteen pieces of a kitten lain out on the floor slide quietly back together.

“This is a baby puzzle,” Emily complains, her dark purple-and-white sneakers kicking in mid-air.

Ash smirks as he watches Jake crawl across his blanket – repeated attempts at keeping him in one place are met with squalls of frustration from the infant. “Don’t think Jake could do it,” he points out.

“Jake’s a little baby. This is a puzzle for a BIG baby.”

“You’re cranky,” Ash points out, which earns him a pout.

“I wanna go to the zoo,” she complains, and Ash hears within her an echo of his childhood self, and winces.

It’s really rainy, and nearly four – too late to leave, too crummy to drag a baby out. He spins an excuse. “I don’t think they have a zoo here. And the animals probably smoke those cigarettes that smell like…” That’s when there’s a knock on the door. Alarm bells sound in Ash’s head, and he picks up a struggling Jake, plunking him into the bassinette. “Stay where I can see you,” he tells Emily brusquely, and she keeps playing with the puzzle pieces, tuning him out.

He strategizes while he steps toward the door – there’s a vase on the table…it could always break, the pieces ‘accidentally’ ending up lodged in a person-turned-Deadite’s throat…

KNOCK.

He curses the French government and their incredibly stringent importation rules and their complex waiting periods and gun permits. Ash presses his face against the peephole, his brow quirked at the sight on the other side. A couple in their forties with a laundry basket filled with various items of food, wearing matching white sweaters and huge, artificial smiles.

“Guess the welcome wagon finally found us,” Ash mutters, unlocking the door and pasting a fake smile of his own on.

Ash comes prepared for pleasantries, but he’s not prepared for his neighbor to sweep him into a bearhug. “Welcome to France, new neighbor!”

The man is blonde, with a thick body and a van dyke wiggling anticly over thin lips and under a broad nose and strangely vacant-seeming black eyes. Something about that gaze creeps Ash out, and he reaches automatically backwards with his left hand…for a holster and gun that isn’t there, fuck customs! He uses quiet force to shove the guy backward instead, pasting a mock-apologetic look on his face.

“This is for you,” he says, taking the item from his wife and thrusting the basket of food into Ash’s arms. “I’m Mike – she’s Mattie. We’re the Smithsons!” he declares with pride. “Been living in the unit nextdoor for decades now…”

“Or so it feels,” Mattie inserts from beside her husband. “What a great job you’ve done fixing the old place up,” she remarks, pushing her way past the two men. “That’s such a darling couch!” She’s as blonde as her husband, with the same vacant dark eyes and thin lips.

“We got it off the curb,” Ash retorts, carrying the overloaded basket into the kitchenette. “Make yourselves…” he looks up to notice they’re occupying the sofa. “At home.” He shakes his head and turns toward the refrigerator. “Would you like something to drink? We’ve got…” almost nothing – he really should’ve shopped this morning instead of fruitlessly perusing the want ads. “Uh…Apple Juicy Fruit, a half-bottle of wine, two beers, and some milk…”

“Oh, apple juice please. We don’t drink,” Mike explains, as Ash pours drinks.

“We’re on a cleansing fast,” Mattie adds. “Only juice until the first Sunday of April.”

“Yeah.” Ash dumps the rest of the apple juice into a couple of unmatched tumblers. “Can I get you something to eat?” It dimly occurs to him that offering to cook up whatever they’ve brought would be bad form. “Think we’ve got some pork rinds lying around…”

“Oh no thank you – we don’t eat meat,” Mike explains.

“Only on festival days,” Mattie says, watching Ash as he carries the half-filled glasses into the living room. He hands out the juice and occupies his armchair, sitting close to a wary-eyed Emily, who’s stopped drawing and watches the newcomers with frank curiosity.

His manners kick in as silence descends over the group. “I’m Ash Williams. This is my daughter, Emily…”

Emily, concentrating heavily on her drawing, finally looks up. “Where did they put their wagon?” she wonders.

Ash just smiles. “She’s very bright…uh, this is Jake…” he picks up his son, who’s been chewing on an oversized block. Releasing it, the boy whimpers at the strangers, who watch him with a proprietary interest.

“What do you do, Mister Williams?”

Good question. “I have a degree in engineering.” He winces, recognizing the wages of turning thirty were paid in lying about earning money in retail. “My wife’s working toward a masters in French. Wants to get a job as a translator.”

“Fine profession,” beams Mike.

“So…what do you do?” Ash wonders.

“We run a book shop in the L’Opera district,” Mattie explains.

“Do you read, Mister Williams?” Mike wonders.

The longest thing he’s read in five years was Miss November 1996’s profile. He figures his guests don’t need to know his wife had discovered and incinerated his vintage collection of Hustlers that year, and says, “these two keep me pretty busy.”

“Oh, I can relate –we had three ourselves…” Mattie goes on and on for several minutes about her children as Ash struggles to stay awake.

He feels an abrupt tug on his pantleg, and glances down to see Emily watching. He puts down his lukewarm coffee and makes room on his lap for her. “They’re real boring,” she stage-whispers into his ear, leaning against his shoulder. Ash has to agree - the story has segued into a retelling of Mattie’s gal bladder surgery.

He looks at his watch – it’s five, and if Sheila gets home she’ll want to talk their ears off and he’ll never get these two idiots out of his house. He places Emily on the chair, Jake in his playpen. “Well, it’s getting late, and I need to get dinner going – my wife’s gonna be home soon.”

Both Mike and Mattie instantly turn quiet. “Well…yes, we’ll be seeing you, Mister Williams…” Mattie yanks Mike to his feet. “But you will be sure to eat the goodies we bought? Especially the cheese?”

“Uh yeah…”

“It’s VERY special cheese,” Mattie insists, as Ash fairly kicks the door closed in their faces.

“I’ll take care of it. See you…” He kicks the door shut and leans against it. “Ya freaks,” he mutters under his breath.

“I don’t like them,” Emily offers, going to the record player, exchanging Ella for Three Dog Night’s _Seven Separate Fools._ “They smell like carrots.”

“Carrots and bullshit,” Ash mutters. He heads into the kitchen, prepares a simple meal of frozen fish sticks and fries, then takes apart the basket.

There is indeed a wheel of funky-smelling orange cheese, but also freshly-baked baguettes, a crock of pate, two boxes of chocolates and a couple of sausages. He packed the stuff into the fridge, forgetting it all with a shrug.

***

Their nighttime routine holds solid, and when she’s using him as a pillow he’s more than willing to put up with her absorption in her homework. Sheila lies with a heavy red tome open against her stomach, occasionally reading aloud an extraction for him, and he listens because her voice is soothing.

 _“Ma faim, Anne, Anne  
Fuis sur ton ane..” _

“I’ll bite. What does that mean?”

He’s never really curious about her lessons, so this earns him a raised brow and a confused look. “Tis Rimbaud. A poem of his.”

“What does it SAY, babe?” he wonders.

“The literal translation reads : ‘My hunger, Anne, Anne – flee on your donkey…” Ash snickers, and she elbows him gently. “’Tis a masterwork of the language, Ashley. One I believe you might sympathize with…”

True enough. He had flown from her once, though not on a donkey. “Is est totus Fanaticus volo”, he says.

She smiles at the Latin – perhaps it brings about pleasant memories for her, or maybe his tenuous grasp on the language is hilarious. “All French to thee? Aye, it might be. Ye should leave the house to absorb it more readily.”

“Gonna get the chance tomorrow. Emily’s teacher wants to see me.”

His evasive expression tells her all she needs to know about why. “Ashley! I begged thee to hold thy tongue when ye’re about the children!”

Fuck, he hates it when she scolds him like he’s five. “Aww, you know what happens, sugar – sometimes it just slips out…”

“Tis enough for them to grasp, that I am several centuries old,” Sheila complains, climbing off his lap and stalking into the kitchen. “Tis enough that they’ve seen ye bruised and cut from those foul creatures. But our children need not know in their youth how to slaughter a monster!”

He turns her around, grasps her about the waist, and says with intensity. “They need to know how to save themselves. The quicker they learn, the easier it’ll be for them to survive if…”

The ‘if’ hangs between them, and Sheila’s features twist. “Spoke out of turn,” she sighs, leaning into him.

“No. You just want the same thing I do – to keep ‘em safe.” He kisses her forehead. “Want dessert? There’s some chocolate in the fridge.”

Her hands knead the back of his neck. “You shopped?”

The look in her eyes makes lying easy for Ash. “This morning.”

She presses him against the kitchen table, his arms still around her even as she lies him back against the Formica. “I believe I should have something sweeter…”

 _Score!_ Ash crows to himself, ignoring the niggling feeling of concern picking at his nerves. But good sex trumps needless worry any day in his playbook. Tomorrow he’ll go shopping and the fridge will be so full she’ll never notice the difference.

His train of thought derails as she pulls her ponytail out and presses him flat against the table.

TBC


	3. Part Trois

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids (and Ash) get sick and a family trip develops.

“So,” says Ben from across the Atlantic, “it’s been a month now…how’re things in Paris?”

“Well, Jake cut his first tooth – he’s been screaming his head off for the past couple of days, so I’m running on two hours of sleep…Emily’s got a recital next week, and Sheila’s got a week to her first quarter exam and is freaking out on me every other minute. You?”

Ben takes a long pause. “You still haven’t gotten out of the apartment?”

He puffs up indignantly. “I’ve been to the market!”

“Oh, dude…you are SO WHIPPED!”

“I’m NOT WHIPPED!” Ash yells, as Jake giggles from his high chair, clutching a strawberry ice pop between his chubby fists. Ash glowers and pokes the kid’s belly with a forefinger. “Didn’t ask for your opinion, kid.” Jake plunges the strawberry pop back into his mouth, giving Ash an innocent, wide-eyed look.

“Fpish,” comments Ben dryly.

“Look, I don’t have time for your bullshit, so…” his phone beeps rudely, cutting off further speech. “I have another call. Can I put you on hold?”

“Whatever, dude.”

Ash unceremoniously clicks the button. “Ash,” he answers brusquely.

“-SUSAN, PUT THAT DOWN! Oh, Mister Williams?”

His stomach clenches into a hard knot of nerves. “Ms. Aldrin.”

“PAUL, I SAID SIT…Yes, could you come down right away? I’m afraid Emily’s sick. We think she should go home and…DON’T PUT THAT FINGER PAINT IN YOUR NOSE! Can you come down to get her?”

Ash is already halfway out the door, Jake quickly tucked into his pram and bundled up in layers of blanket, his apartment keys jangling from the tip of his left index finger. “I’m on my way.”

He leaves Ben cursing on the open line.

***

Emily bubbles with good humor as Ash signs her out for the day and carries her off toward home. “Guess what, daddy! I have the chicken pox!”

“I can tell,” Ash grumbles, carrying her against his chest as they rush down the busy mid-afternoon lane, dodging tourists and shoppers with muffled curses. “You look like a pepperoni pizza.”

Her heated face has burrowed into the space between Ash’s collar and his neck. “You got one, too,” she says, poking at a tiny patch of red that lies upon his right shoulder.

“That’s not a chicken pox.” He knows she’s pointing to the little red mark his evil twin left behind when they were torn into two separate entities. Emily’s been told contradictory things about his two-week sojurn through hell, and Ash has embellished the story with playful lies. (“I got into a fight with Big Jim Walker. You know him? He’s a pool-shooting sunuvagun.”) She’s absorbed the truth from other sources, from his unguarded moments. “I’m fine,” he says, even though he feels a little dizzy. “I’ll make you some chicken soup when we get home.” He tries to remember if they even have any chicken soup – he has to track Sheila down at her school, get her to bring home a few cans,

Ash automatically tightened his grip on the pram’s handle, on Emily, as they pass by the Cimitiere du Pere-Lachaise. He hates graveyards as a rule, but there’s something creepy about this vine-strewn resting ground, the giggling teams of people haunting Jim Morrison’s grave with clouds of pot smoke.

He slows down. Is that…among the rows of stone….A body?

“DADDY!” Emily’s little fist socks him in the chest. “You’re squeezin’ too hard.”

Ash relaxes his grip against her back, reluctantly. He tucks her more firmly against his collarbone and hurries his step.

 _Just a drunk caretaker,_ he chants to himself, running home.

****

“I’m itchy,” Emily complains, rubbing her closed fists against the red bumps dotting her face.

“Don’t do that, please,” Ash demands, pulling her little hands down to rest against the blankets. She’s consumed a mug of soup and had an oatmeal bath and has settled into a vaguely feverish ball against his chest in the master bedroom.

“Why?” she pouts.

Ash gropes for a reason – he just knows that it’s a bad thing to do. “Because I told you not to. So don’t.” Emily “hmphs” and nuzzles up against his chest, rubbing her face against the rough material of his shirt. “I know what you’re doing, so stop it. Your mom’ll be home as soon as she can with the lotion.” Muffling a laugh as she shoots him a hateful glare - his own glare, the same dark eyes shooting malevolence at him - Ash moves her hands again toward the blankets. “You’ll get hurt,” he warns her. “Wanna end up looking like me?”

Emily’s lips purse together thoughtfully. “Nope. But you’re very pretty, daddy,” she says finally, copying her mother’s British inflection precisely.

Ash smirks, a vague air of amusement in his words. “The word’s handsome, kitten. Daddy’s handsome.” He plays with her hair, the dark mass tangled and damp with sweat, the curls snarling against the joints of his right hand.

“Pretty,” she repeats, playing with the chain hanging around his neck, wiggling the crucifix and the magnifying glass pendant against each other. Normally, Ash carries these in his front pocket – today they’re hanging around his neck, a protective amulet. “I want to be less itchy NOW,” she demands.

“You’re gonna have to deal with it,” he growls. “I can’t make you better, baby girl.” He kisses her brow, lets her curl a little closer. “But if you were a robot, I could fix you.”

She giggles. “It is not my lime directive,” she says.

Ash glances at his son, lying in the crib a few feet away sucking down his afternoon bottle – their eyes meet, a look of understanding passing between them. “It’s prime directive.”

She yawns. “Mommy says you sound like a geek when you talk that way,” she informs him.

Ash glowers at the empty space beside him, Sheila’s side of the bed. “Mommy doesn’t know what she’s talking about. They didn’t have geeks in her time.”

Emily ignores this little slight. She’s nearly asleep. “Daddy?”

“Mmm?” Ash had nearly been asleep, too, until she’d spoken up.

“Sing?”

He chuckles. He can’t sing – he knows he can’t. She’s the only person who’s ever asked him to. He hums instead – her favorite song, “How About You?”.

Emily’s asleep before he’s halfway through with the first verse, and he follows her down, an uncomplicated slide into the darkness.

***

Time passes oddly in his fevered sleep. Faces blend together – his mother into his sister, into his lovers. And blood, too much blood pouring out of the walls and into his mouth…

He’ll never forget what it tastes like.

The Technicolored monsters ripping his guts out, resituating them, laughing at his screams. The smell of flesh burning. The sound of Linda screaming…

And the sight of his mother, still and pale in her bed, the curtains blowing in the breeze and Cheryl screaming for her to come back….

He wakes up and it’s pitch dark, a heft much heavier than his daughter lies draped against his shoulder. She stirs when he struggles in search of a light.

The bedside lamp flicks on, revealing a worried Sheila. She gives him a smile as pushes back a sweaty hank of dark hair from his brow, presses her hand to his forehead. “Tis broken at last.”

Ash tries in vain to register what this means – he feels sweaty, half-starved, and exhausted….and itchy! He reaches automatically to scratch at his scalp, and she graps his wrists mid-gesture. “Ye’ll bleed,” she scolds, and Ash glares at her. Sheila doesn’t even try to stop herself from laughing. “I’ll run a bath…”

He grabs her wrists before she can move. Her exhaustion and the late hour suddenly bring about a wave of clarity. “How long’ve I been out?”

“A day and a half,” she explains.

“How high did my…”

“One hundred and three degrees, the doctor said.”

“You called a doctor? We can’t afford…”

Sheila glowers at him, her chin out. “Ye were insensible,” she explains. “Tis my money, Ashley.” She pulls out of his grip. “Let me draw a bath.”

He releases his grip, lets her walk away before forcing himself to sit up. Ash is stunned by his own weakness, the vague hum of dizziness in his head – he looks down to see arms pocked over by white spots, and his stump…

“What the hell,” he shouts, causing Sheila to leap as he enters the bathroom, “did you do with my hand?”

She turns about to face him. “Thy doctor removed it. Ye were to sweat freely, and it impeded thee. Tis in the chest of drawers.” She glares. “Remove thy underclothes.”

He smirks and stays perfectly still, but Sheila’s unwilling to enjoy his teasing for even a moment. She rises, and the threat of her stripping him like a child forces Ash to pull off the teeshirt and underwear she’d put him in, then lets her guide him to the tub and tsks as he splashes water over the floor on entry.

Ash sits still and allows her to bathe him, vaguely chagrinned by her workmanlike approach to the task. He likes being catered to and hates being fussed over, but her hands are mild and soothing and he can feel himself melting, unwilling, under her progress.

“Tis time for thee to be dry…” She pours a pitcher of cool water over his shaggy head, sending him sputtering upright and purifying his thoughts, before urging him to stand and rubbing him over with a towel. His body likes that a tad more than he might wish it to. “We cannot,” she murmurs against his shoulder. “Ye’ll have back thy illness.”

“Not too sick for a little something sweet…” he tries to incline his head, press a kiss to her forehead, but his lips mash, limp, against the top of her head.

“Weak as a kitten,” she remarks. “Hie to bed, then I shall daub thee with lotion.”

He fights her for a few moments, but eventually ends up exactly where she wants him to be – face-up in bed, in boxer shorts, spotted from head to toe in calamine lotion (there’s even a corpuscle on his big toe, bright white and porous). Finished, she retrieves his hand and its apparatus from the dresser drawer and crawls into bed beside him and throws an arm over his stomach.

Ash grumbles as he straps the apparatus back into place – there’s something off about the hydraulics, and he’ll have to spend tomorrow fiddling it back into gear.

She laughs and brushes back a curled forelock. “You do feel better,” she smiles. “Thy glare is as black and merciless as a wounded tiger’s. Tis common of thy countenance – all shall soon be well.”

“You know I don’t like it when you mess with my stuff,” he growls.

“Aye, I recall. The alloys,” she retorts, resting her face against his chest. Her arm tightens. “Ye will not give me a fright such as this again,” she instructs.

“Whatever milady wants,” he snorts, enjoying the sensation of her skin on his, the small mercy of her affection.

The silence is shattered. “Ashley, what happened to thy mother?”

Every muscle in his body goes rigid at her question. “You called for her in thy fever. You told her not to leave.” She stares at him with those eyes of hers, and he knows he’ll have to tell.

It’s odd to discover the parts of themselves that they’ve kept hidden from one another through the years. He lives under the delusion that he knows everything about this woman and suddenly a snip of information will spring to life and take him completely off-guard. She’s going through this now as he tries to find the words.

His sentence is simple, brief. “She had cancer.”

Sheila’s fingers stroke against his chest, over his side, but she says nothing.

Maybe Sheila’s been through the same thing, but once the words come to him Ash can’t seem to stop explaining. “I was sixteen – Cheryl was thirteen. Took a year…”

Into the silence, Ash’s words fall, a plea. “The last thing she told me to do was take care of Cheryl.”

She watches him, her eyes filled with concern, and her fingers stroke against his. He pulls away from her offered comfort. “I’m okay,” he says, voice rough.

Kissing his chest, she says, “aye, love….Thy father?”

Ash’s features tighten, and Sheila takes this as a ‘back off’ signal and goes quiet. “In jail. He’s a mean bastard.” There’s plenty left unsaid – nothing she really needs to know.

“Art sorry.”

Sheila might be humoring him, but Ash allows her words to wash over him, balming his mind, letting them both relax into sleep.

***

“You call this noodle soup?”

Sheila grumbles as she bends over Ash to retrieve his discarded paper plate, sprinkling toast crumbs across the sheets as she stretches to reach it. She squeaks as his right hand comes down with a smack upon her upturned buttocks, which earns him a quick elbow to the gut. He pulls on the elbow, and she tumbles with a squeak across the bed, leading to a wrestling match that ends with her astride his middle.

She pants, laughing as he frowns up at her indignantly. “Did ye say something, milord?”

“I said,” Ash began, his words coming in abrupt chunks as she bent to nibble the underside of his chin. “The soup…there’s no…noodles…”

“Noodles?” she nips his pulse point, then kisses him just below his ear.

Ash tries in vain to put together a sentence. “None…”

Sheila lifts her chin arrogantly. “I believe their lack is not the most pressing matter. Something, in fact, presses far more strongly at the moment…”

Ash manages a dirty smirk as he lunges up to kiss her. When the door swings open Sheila squeaks, flopping onto her back and dragging the sheet up to hide the evidence of his reaction to her.

Emily glowers at them from the doorway. “Are you guys playin’ leap frog again?”

Ash tries to hide his face against his forearm, muttering his discontent. Emily fecklessly bounds into the room, a picture book under her arm and trailing the body of her baby doll, Mo, behind her, fingers cupped around the loose joint barely holding her arm together (Ash’s attempt at re-stringing Mo’s limbs last week hadn’t gone to plan). Sheila, typically, is too embarrassed to say anything – at Jake’s hungry cry she scrambles off the bed and lifts Emily onto the mattress. “Mind your papa,” she instructs her daughter, fetching her son for his morning nursing.

Emily automatically presses up against Ash’s side. “Didja win this time, daddy?” she whispers.

Ash peers over at his daughter. He understands what she’s getting at and mutters “God!” very softly under his breath, rubbing his eyes against his forearms. It’s far too early in the morning to explain things.

Emily pokes at his chin, and Ash opens his eyes, glaring at her. Emily just watches back “You don’t sound so good,” she says. “Ma-ma,” agrees Mo, her plastic head smacking against Ash’s chest.

“I’m doin’ hotter than you are,” he says – Emily’s chicken pox have crusted over into hard red dots, and they’ve begun to gradually fall out, leaving behind pink marks. He reaches out and tugs on a lock of her hair, allowing it to spring back quickly. “Boing!” he remarks.

Emily hates his passionately. “Daddy!”

“BOING!” he responds, tugging another lock.

She glares, her dark eyes narrow, the look so similar to his that Ash laughs loudly. “Stop,” she pouts.

“You promise to be nice?” Ash asks.

“Mmm-hmm,” she says, snuggling against his side and opening the picture book.

“I didn’t. BOING!” Ash responds, pulling another lock.

“MOMMY!” Emily howls.

“Ashley, dinna tease your daughter.” Sheila orders from her perch at the edge of the bed, and winces as Jake nicks her with his teeth. “And as for ye, wee one, use caution….” She frowns down at her breast. “Perhaps I should finish weaning thee over the month….Ashley? Did ye purchase formula at market?”

Ash smirks at her. “You sure know how to suck the romance out of a room, babe.”

Sheila snorts. “And when did we last share romance, milord?”

“Our anniversary,” he remarks with confidence. “I shaved AND I brought a gift.” Ash clearly considers these the greatest of accomplishments.

“La la,” Sheila remarks, then mutters an archaic curse and adjusts Jake’s head. “Only for comfort, wee one. Soon these shall be mine again.”

Ash murmurs something about her breasts and who they really belong to. Emily’s nose screws up and she says, “but you’d look very silly with mommy’s…”

Ash cuts her off. “Does anyone else feel like a story?”

“Me!” Sheila interrupts.

“But why would you want to…” Emily pouts.

“Two against one, kid, you’re outnumbered.”

“Jake should have a vote,” Emily declares.

“Jake can’t talk!” He pulls the book out of her hand. “This is the story of…” he frowns at the title page. “’Nessie, the Mannerless Monster’.” _AGAIN,_ he adds mentally; it happens to be Emily’s favorite book. He clears his throat, changes intonations. “YES. NESSIE…the Mannerless…Monster.”

Ash settles into the story with ease, enjoying Emily’s wide-eyed absorption in the tale. Even Sheila seems to enjoy the verse as Jake finishes his nursing and she settles him back into the crib, and comes around to sit beside him.

Before he’s finished, Emily’s drifted off to sleep, and his right arm lies numb beneath the weight of her body. “The end,” he murmurs into her hair as he kisses the crown of her head.

“Very nice,” Sheila whispers. She digs into the front pocket of her pants and hands him four strips of paper. “Payment for the bard,” she teases.

Ash squints down at the strips of paper. “Mind the Gap…”

“Keep thy thoughts pure,” Sheila requests, “ye’ve been so hard at work, and the family needs to learn of its heritage. There is a brief weekends’ respite in classes for me.”

“What the hell’s in London that’d keep the kids happy? Besides the oversized candy bars.”

Sheila hummed as she nonchalantly withdrew a brochure from the front pocket of her dress. Ash’s eyes nearly glazed over in disbelief as he took in the

“Kandarland?!…. ‘Come play and stay on our fifty-acre property, featuring our award-winning recreation of medieval life in our authentic fourteenth century castle?!’” He unfolded the brochure across his chest. The advertisement promised faithfully-recreated jousting tournaments and scrimmage, hearty fare in the ‘King Henry the Ate Food Court’ and a museum featuring…” Ash blinked at the shot of an interior of their museum, recognizing chunks of his beloved Oldsmobile encased forever in Lucite.

Sheila instantly begins rubbing his rigidly-held jaw. “And what do’e think I feel upon the matter, milord? It was MY castle.”

“I thought it was Arthur’s,” Ash retorts.

“’Twas my father’s,” Sheila replies. “Only mine to run.” She frowns, falling back against the bed. “Because I lacked a little bit of dangly flesh ‘twixt my legs.”

“You really wanna go back there?” He props himself up on an elbow.

“We’ve unfinished business, milord,” she points out. “’Twil not be the same, but perhaps…”

He understands that this will be about her demons, not his. “Fine. These tickets are for…”

“Saturday – ye’ll be well by then…” She kisses his chest and coddles, “perhaps ye will have a chuckle at the pageantry, milord.”

Ash pouts, caressing the picture. “Poor Lola,” he murmurs. “You didn’t deserve to go out like that, girl.”

“She died nobly,” Sheila retorts.

Ash glowers, putting aside the brochure. “YOU killed her.”

“Demons, Ashley,” she replies lightly.

“You’re always gonna use that excuse, aren’t ya?”

“Because ‘tis valid,” she replies, tucking her head against his shoulder.

 

He can’t argue with that point. Instead, he stares at the tickets in his left hand and realizes that his wife has just rewarded him for good behavior. As if he were her…

He shudders and frowns, burrowing under the covers.

A tiny part of his mind decides that it’s better to be treated like a mistress than a housewife.


	4. Part Quatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash finds an unexpected old ally in hiding at Kandarland.

"There are four stars," Emily notices, poking each bright point with her fingertip.

"Aye, love," Sheila notes, "wonderfully done. And how many bears art there?"

Ash looks up from the bag of zwieback crackers, brow arched. "Bears watching the stars? Sounds like it   
was written by Dr. Seuss's younger, stoned brother."

"What's stoned?" Emily wonders.

Sheila gives Ash an unforgiving glare. "Count the bunnies, darling - and support thy son's head,   
Ashley."

Ash follows Sheila's instruction - the boy had been slipping down the inside of his father's forearm as   
Ash tried to dangle a stuffed rabbit in his line of vision. Jake reaches out for the toy, giggling - Ash   
swears, for just a second, that his little hands have the power to pull it down toward his open mouth.   
Ignoring the strange thought, he starts mumbing to Jake in a soothing voice about England, and what they   
would do there.

Ash doesn't harbor any delusions - he's trying to comfort himself over the notion of seeing Kandar again.

He winces as the train pulls to an abrupt stop, jouncing his against the window casing. Jake let out a   
squeal of delight as his father glares up at the scrolling red LED light that welcomes them to the Camden   
Town platform. A voice informs them, "Upon arrival, the last set of doors will not open. Please remain   
seated while the carriage comes to a complete halt." With a contemptuous snort, Ash rises to his feet as   
the carriage slows. He feels positively justified in his action when he's right at the head of the line   
forming by the door of the carriage. "Please stand clear of the doors." There's a ding before they   
swiftly open and Ash steps forward...then leaps backward as they close again, shoving him into a tall   
man wearing a trenchcoat.

The loudspeaker crackles to life. "Would the gentleman in the navy jacket holding the toddler PLEASE   
stand clear of the doors?"

Ash pushed himself away from the grumbling man in the trenchoat, glaring up at the loudspeaker. The   
bell rang, the door opening. "Thank you."

As he strides onto the platform at Camden Town, Ash "subtly" flipped off the camera by pretending to   
scratch his nose with his middle finger. Sheila pokes his shoulder as she catches up to him. ""All could   
see thy...creative way of expression, Ashley."

"I was just itching my nose, babe." He shifts Jake to his left shoulder, trying to keep hold of the gear bag   
and the baby.

Emily happily began scratching her own nose. "Look, mommy, I'm just like daddy!"

Sheila pulls Emily's hand away from her face silently. "Ashley? Shall ye retrieve a carriage?"

"It's called a cab," he rolls his eyes again, but, once they've climbed to the street outside Ash follows her   
request and flags down a vehicle for his family.

The drive to Kandar is peppered with questions from Emily about the English cityscape, her pale forehead   
pressed hard against the window glass, smearing it.

"Is that a lorry?" she asks as the car turns right, making the two-mile approach to the theme park. Ash   
barely heard her question as he stared at the dark green placard.

"No, darling, it's a phone booth," Sheila says.

"Oh. Daddy, what's a lorry?" Emily's question is accompanied by a tug on his jacket sleeve.

Ash, drawn back to brutal reality, contemplates the language. "I...don't know..."

"But you know EVERYTHING..." she trails off as they exit the city limits and traverse a long, recently-  
paved pathway out of London and down a deserted highway, leading to a large fenced-in parking lot   
surrounding an imposing castle.

"Here we are!" the cab comes to a stop, and Sheila roots through her purse for the fare as Ash gawks up at   
the rebuilt structure. It looks exactly as it had hundreds of years before, perhaps a tad craggier, banners   
waving from every rampart in the colors of violet, gold and blue.

Hypnotized, Ash opens the door and tries to take in the enormity of the image, an eerie feeling rushing   
over him. He watches the sign and its digital readout of the temperature in London and the price of the   
castle's new "fast pass". "Welcome to Kandarland!" the message blinks. "Enjoy your stay!"

"That'd be a novelty," Ash grumbles. A car veers by, sending Ash sprawling back against the open door;   
the passing driver flips Ash off, he flips off the driver in return, and behind him he hears, "Ashley! Mind   
thyself."

He glowers, straightening up. "Bastard should watch where he's going." Automatically, he takes charge   
of Emily, who scoots out beside him. She hangs on to his fingers as the four of them made their way   
through the lot and into one of the rope-qued lines leading into the amusement park.

It's an excessively dull wait. Emily entertains the entire group by singing "When I'm Sixty-Four" at the   
top of her lungs (Much to Sheila's immense embarrassment and Ash's amusement). Twenty minutes   
later, they come to the front of the ticket booth, which is also castle-shaped and bedecked in purple and   
gold.

"Well met, fair traveler," a bored-sounding teenager in a polyster crown and drably-colored uniform says,   
"how would ye wish to customize thy Kandarland experience?"

Ash stares at the various options dancing before his eyes while Sheila glares at the teenager behind the   
booth. Slouching is unacceptable and offensive to her, and she's ready to remark upon it when Ash   
speaks. "Uh, I'll take four fast passes and three ride tokens."

The girl behind the register smiles as she doles out the oversized purple chips and small loop of blue   
tickets. "That'll be 98 pounds, Sir."

Ash blinks at the price, and Sheila preempts his complaint by passing the woman a fistful of pound notes.   
"A meal voucher as well, please." He grumbles that they're not made of money and Sheila ignores him.   
"Ye can exchange a pence for a pound?"

"Where are you getting all that cash from?" Ash hisses.

"A check arrived last morn. The monthly dole. Our accounts have been settled." She hands him the meal   
voucher. "Keep these to thy breast and I shall hold Jake." She takes their son and bends down to pat   
Emily's cheek. "Where dost thou wish to go, love?"

Emily, clinging to her father, has been staring at the varying rides built into the courtyard. A rollercoaster   
screams overhead and she stares with undisguised glee.

Ash intervenes before she can suggest it. "How about the petting zoo?"

***

As with most of Ash's brilliant plans, he clearly hadn't thought this one out ahead of time before plunging   
in. With one eye on Emily and the other on a toddling Jake, he watches the confusion of children and   
baby animals with dizzied concern. Jake has plunked down in his pants and gladly feeds a lamb handfuls   
of straw. Emily, meanwhile, runs through the mounds of penned-in hay shrieking, chasing down a black   
goat about half her height.

"Don't tease that thing," Ash booms over the rabble of voices, over Sheila's request that he turn around   
and smile for the camera. Somehow Emily catches a sprinting lamb and sits down, placing it in her lap   
while she feeds him handfuls of processed food.

Ash's train of thought is derailed when something hard collided with his right shin. Leaping backward,   
he looks down to see a small gray lamb staring expectantly at him, bleating.

"Go away."

The lamb bleats again.

"I don't have anything for you! I gave it all to..." he buries his face in his hands. "I'm having a   
conversation with an animal. Jesus Christ..." He feels a tug on his pantleg.

"Can people eat hay?" Emily asks.

Ash picks her up; conversations are easier with her when he can look her in the eye. He plucks a handful   
of hay out of her locks and scatters it to the ground below. "You look like Jane Russell's little sister."

Emily pouts. "Who's Jane Russell?"

Ash sighs. "You poor, deprived kid..." Ash allows himself the respite of imagining Jane Russell   
sprawled upon the hay, winking seductively at him...

Emily's chin thunking into his chest ruins the illusion. "What was I like when I was a baby?"

That was apropos of nothing. "Very loud," he says.

"What else?" she pouts, clinging to him.

Ash wraps his arm around her back. "You were a happy kid, like you are now." He thinks for another   
moment, then adds, "wouldn't eat anything but strained pears for two months."

"Oh," Emily says. "I was just wondering." She squirms until he puts her down.

"Why did you want to know about the hay?"

"Oh!" she brightens. "Jake was sharin' some with one of the goats."

Ash stares at her for just a second before sprinting into the crowd, reaching Jake just before he swallows a   
mouthful of sweet-smelling hay.

The remains of the day proceed in a similarly chaotic fashion. After smacking her father across the brow   
with rubber-wrapped pugilist's stick at King John's Activity Court and riding Queen Guinevere's Merrie   
Go Round and watching a puppet show about a naughty prince who wouldn't share his mud pies an   
innumerable amount of times, Emily konks out in Ash's grip. He swears he can hear her snoring as he   
carries her toward the exit.

Sheila pokes Ash's shoulder. "The return ticket says six thirty. 'Tis only four." To his amusement, she   
seems dismayed by this notion as Jake sleeps comfortably in her grip.

"Great. What's there left to do in this hellhole?"

Sheila points toward the opposite end of the courtyard, at the entrance to the museum. "We might tour."   
She sounds hesitant, and he knows why.

"You sure you want to?" He automatically reaches out to touch her shoulder.

"I need to," she informs him, stroking his hand with her free one before turning about. "To see what they   
have found, to know what has been left behind." To release the past, she tells him without saying   
anything more.

He follows for once in his life, through the winding burgundy-colored imitation velvet ropes, up two   
steps, to a booth. Ash pays for two tickets (children get in free, apparently), and they take a right down he   
marble-lined hallway to the exhibit hall.

The warm amber tones of the exhibit hall don't prevent a chill of discovery from running up Ash's spine.   
The first room reconstructs the history of Kandar's settlement. At the far end of the room, Sheila   
recognizes her mother's suite of diamonds.

"An engagement gift from my father." Her tone flashes her wounds for all to hear. Her right hand slips   
into his left automatically.

In the second room, she finds her hair comb, and pieces of jewelry from her betrothal trousseau.

"I was to be a gift to Spain. Father said I was to wear them when presented to my husband." There's a   
hushed pain in her voice - she doesn't wish to wake up Jake. "It disintegrated once word of our problem   
spread 'cross the ocean." Ash squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back. "I am no other man's woman,"   
she says. "I am not displeased by that fact."

"Good," Ash retorts, gently repositioning Emily against his collarbone. She's getting heavy, a dead   
weight in his arms. "Wouldn't wanna fight some guy for your honor." A small smirk. Ash would kill   
the non-existent bastard without hesitation, and she knows it.

"La? I believe ye dashing with pistols drawn." A slight blush stains her cheeks

He snorts at her assessment. "Violence turns you on. I knew it!"

Sheila huffs disagreeably at that notion. "Ashley," she says sweetly, "I am no more pleased by the report   
of thy boomstick than the curl of thy tongue about my name."

Confusion overtakes his expression. "Did you just ask me for some sugar?"

Sheila snorts. Her squeeze becomes somewhat unfriendly as they head to the next room.

This detailed the excavation at Kandar, and memorialized Raymond Knowby, "who died under tragic and   
mysterious circumstances in 1993."

"That what they're calling dismemberment these days?"

"Hush," Sheila sighs as they withdraw from the room, her hand in his. There's a short walk from the   
back entrance of the museum to the complex's souvenir alley. "A shirt for Emily, mayhap?"

"Why not?" Ash grumbles. "Let's dump another ten bucks down this craphole..."

Before he can queue up for the tee-shirt, Sheila gasps. "Oh, Ashley - a fortune teller's tent! Shall we   
have our palms read?"

She points to a nondescript tent further up the concourse with a brass sign indicating its use. The   
suggestion causes disbelief to appear upon Ash's features. "You wanna mess with the spiritual world?"

"'Tis but a lark," Sheila insists. "Even in my time, fortune tellers were considered charlatans."

Ash grumbles. "Well..."

"I shall render the service."

"Yeah," he grumbles, following her to the tent. "If you're paying."

As the enter the tent, Ash notices two things immediately - the scent of incense is nearly overwhelming   
and there was a skull in the dead center of the table, a candle perched in the center of its forehead.

"Nice." He takes note of the fortune teller behind the table with his long gray hair and cracks, "hey   
Cousin It, where're you hiding..." the retort dies in Ash's throat as the palm reader turns around. He   
pushes Sheila behind him. "What the hell..."

Though he's wearing a tie-dyed shirt, nothing else about him has changed. "Promised One! At last you've   
arrived!"

Ash is in no mood for reconciliation. His response is sharp and cool. "What the hell do you want,   
Wiseman?"


	5. Part Cinq

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dire warnings, a museum come to life, and a nice quiet night in with the wife.

The Wiseman watched Ash with a dry, somewhat detached expression. "You've changed little, Promised One."

"It's only been seven years," Ash grumbled, with a pronounced roll of his eyes.

"Yes, and in those five years you have produced two heirs to the mantle," he smiled benignly. "How are wee Emily? And young Jake?"

Ash held Emily closer to his chest, alarm streaking through him. "You old devil," he muttered. "What do you want from me?"

"Only a simple favor."

"Yeah? What?"

"I am afraid I need thee to save the world. Again."

Ash glared at the Wiseman. "I don't do requests, y'old fart."

"It is not a matter of choice, Promised One. It has never been..."

"Ashley," Sheila hissed in his ear, leaning against his left shoulder for comfort. "We might listen to his tale. He is an old and trusted friend..."

"I don't trust anyone over forty, babe," he retorted. "Or anyone under forty."

"Ye dinna trust anyone," she snorted softly. "But Ashley..."

Low sigh. "You're not going to let this go if I walk away, are you?"

"Nay."

Ash grunted. "Damn it..." he turned toward John and grunted. "All right. Lay it on me.'

John gave Ash a short glare before reaching into a leather satchel which had been draped under his table. With a quick jerk of the wrist, he unveiled IT - the Necronomicon ex Mortis.

Ash took two instinctive, automatic steps backward, his wide eyes fixed on the book, his arms crushing a still-sleeping Emily against his chest. "How the hell did you get that blasted thing?! I thought I burned it!"

John flipped the text open, revealing an image, inked in a bright yellow ink that was most definitely not blood. "A revolution of the moon after ye left the bounds of Kandar, the book's blank back pages began to fill automatically with images." He pointed to the illustration. Sheila gasped.

"Ashley, 'tis us!"

John nodded. "It foretold the coming of Sheila to the modern world, and her marriage to the Promised One," he flipped a page over. "The necessity of her coming involves the continuation of the Williams bloodline." His fingers followed the etching. "Though many have been chosen before thee, ye are of a most unusual strength. It is necessary for the safety of the world that thy power be handed down through the generations. Thus it was arranged for Sheila to be brought to thee..." his finger traced along the thin, rust-colored line that connected Ash, Sheila and twin sketches of their children. "And for thee to produce the heirs ye hold now."

"Wait..." Ash jabbed his free finger at John. "You're telling me all of this...Sheila...my kids...all of this was the damn book playing games with me?"

"Not games. It is the force of fate, keeping the balance of good and evil in the world," John said, with great authority.

"Y'always were full of horseshit, Wavy Gravy," Ash snarled.

Sheila immediately reached out to touch him - she gaped in astonishment as he pushed her away. "Ashley, I swear, I did not..."

His eyes bore holes into hers, and she straightened, her answering glare firm. It was a look that could cow him easily, but he refused to waver. "Don't say anything, all right? Just lemme think, damn it..."

Unfortunately, Ash lost his chance at rational thought when the candles began to sputter, a strong wind blowing through the tent. He turned to tell Sheila to run, but she wisely had ducked out of the way, bracing herself under the table and at floor level. Ash had already ducked over the way, putting himself carefully between the wind and Emily, offering himself in silent sacrifice on the off-chance that the evil were specifically targeting him once more.

Ash shuffled the still-sleeping Emily in his grip, squatting close to the ground as he reached for the holster strapped to his back, prepared to dispatch the old man with his gun.

But John was unaffected.

Ash's brows knit together. "The hell?" the gun dipped toward the floor.

The Wiseman seemed unaffected by what had transpired. "Sometimes not even the Chosen knows what shall be," John said. "You must protect the children at all cost. The Necro..." He trailed off, his air squeezed from his lungs on a rattling gasp.

"I already know how to take care of my kids," Ash snapped, but his anger abated in confusion. "You got a jawbreaker stuck in your throat, old man?"

John didn't have the power to respond. A flood of blood did the talking for him as he crumpled to the floor, a dagger buried to the hilt in his back.

A dagger held by a suddenly-animate statue of the Roman Goddess of justice, which had once sat quite decorously upon John's table.

Thinking on his feet, Ash snatched the Necronomicon from John's limp fingers, just missing the arc of its sword as it slashed toward his wrist. "RUN," he demanded of Sheila, following his own advice as he pushed his way to his feet, and out of the tent.

The thinning crowds surrounding the tent were bewildered by the haste and speed with which the Williams clan fought toward the exit. Behind them the bloodcurdling screams of those unfortunate enough to have stepped into the pathway of the Williams' enemy. Ash felt Sheila behind him at every step - she'd lost her shoes in the flight, her bare legs flashing white as she ran.

They dodged left, out toward the main hall, nearing the exits. He heard a metallic shout from behind him.

"YOU SHALL NOT SURVIVE! THE NECRONOMICON SHALL FEAST UPON YOUR PATHETIC SOULS."

Ash stopped dead in his tracks, spun around, shoving Sheila behind him, and said, "When I get done with you, dame, they'll be using you for a doorstop." He then grabbed a sword from a vendor's booth, aimed it high, and pitched it one-handed at the statue - the sword landed with a thunk in the statue's forehead.

The statue's features twisted, an ugly metallic rending sound filling the air as it pried the improvised spear out of his forehead. Ash could only blink. "That always works in the movies," he growled, as they dashed for the doorway. They were through the double-doors and out into the parking lot when the statue crashed into it's doorframe. Ash glanced over his shoulder, barking out a laugh as the statue bashed itself to pieces against the steel frame holding the museum's entrance together.

He and Sheila stood, shivering, side-by-side as they watched the possessed statue pieces roll around upon the museum's floor. At that point, Emily stirred in his arms.

"I had the weirdest dream," she mumbled.

***

"Yet another place we can't go back to," Ash grumbled, as Emily dribbled mustard onto his pants. They had grabbed an impromptu corndog dinner on their way back to the Tube, and were less than fifteen minutes away from arriving back in Paris. "At least this guy was nice enough about it." Mostly because the managers of Kandarland were afraid he'd sue.

Sheila said absolutely nothing to him, choosing to nurse Jake in the improvised shade of her jacket.

Emily poked Ash with her greasy corndog stick. "I think she's mad at you," she observed.

"Don't poke people bigger than you," Ash grumbled.

She studied her father's face for a moment - then pulled Moe out of his hiding place in her backpack. "You need a cuddle," she informed him, in her best Moe-voice.

"Thanks, Moe." He muttered, petting the doll's head. Emily kept watching him pleadingly, and Ash sighed, hugging the poor abused doll.

He swore he could see Sheila smiling across the way.

The silence between he and Sheila lingered, however, even once they got home, and once Emily and Jake had been bathed and tucked off to bed. It gnawed at Ash until he finally cornered his wife in the kitchen.

"Cool it with the silent treatment," he grumbled.

Sheila glowered at him. "Ye wish to have emotional intercourse with me, tho ye feel ye did not choose this life."

"Who the hell has?" she tried to shove her way around him, and Ash immediately decided to turn on the charm. "Lemme make it up to you, baby."

"And how doth ye propose to do this?"

He raked a hand through his head, and then the idea occurred to him. "Lemme whip you up some dinner."

She stared at him for a full minute. "Ye know how to use a stove?"

Well, now he was just offended. "Of course I know how to use a stove," he growled, but instantly softened. "Why don't you go get dolled up, take a nice bath...relax. I'll dig out the cheese our neighbors gave us and make something up."

A smile slowly spread over her face."I do believe house husbandry agrees with thee," she teased, pressing a kiss to Ash's neck as she rushed out to the bath.

He glowered at her retreating form. "That's what I'm afraid of," Ash grumbled, opening the refrigerator door and pulling the oddly-shaped loaf of cheese from its resting place before slicing it into chunks and dumping it into a saucepan.


	6. Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "...Did the gouda just threaten to swallow my soul?"

Fifteen minutes later, a freshly-washed Sheila exited the bathroom, giving her husband a quick glance that read, in simplicity, "what now, genius?"

Ash ignored her look and he tossed another handful of cheese into the saucepan. "Can you get me that bread?"

She reached behind her, grabbing the loaf and handing it to him. "What be this concoction?"

"It's called fondue," Ash said. "Used to make it all the time when I was a kid." He frowned at the pot, then at the mountain of unmelted cheese. "Why the hell isn't it doing anything?"

"Tis inanimate," Sheila snotted, "what 'tis it supposed to 'do', milord?"

"Melt," Ash retorted. "You knew that."

"Ye take my advice? What a charmingly antiquated notion, milord."

Ash glared over his shoulder at her. "Baby, please don't give me another load of that passive aggressive bullshit. "It's way too late at night."

Sheila said nothing for ten minutes as Ash cut the bread up and settled out clusters of grapes. She was the one who noticed that one of the cube had tiny red eyes...and very sharp teeth.

Her shriek gave him just enough warning, and he pulled his hand away from the pile, gaping in horror.

"Swallow your soul!" the cube cried. It was joined by a chorus. "I'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!"

Ash rose a single brow. "D'you see that?"

"Aye, milord!" Sheila gaped.

 

"Okay, not in my mind, that's a plus..." He grabbed the fondue pot filled with shrieking cheese and dumped them unceremoniously into the trash. They shrieked and rolled as Ash grabbed the trash bag and hauled it to the incinerator. Standing in the hallway, he smirked as they shrieked their last.

"Guess we'd better order in,." Ash teased, wrapping an arm around the clearly-shaken Sheila.

"Aye." They headed back into the apartment, where she sat by the living room phone and he dug into the fridge for a bottle of beer. Her eyes widened in sudden fear. "Be there any leftovers?"

Ash's own eyes widened with horrible recognition as the leftover lump of cheese flung itself at him, aiming right for his jugular vein.

The two of them rolled across the floor, Ash keeping the demon-cheese as far out of biting range as possible while the cheese swore it was going to swallow his soul.

Sheila, already on her feet, grabbed a heavy-duty frying pan off of the stove. "What should I do milord?"

"HIT IT!" Ash croaked out. "HIT IT!"

Sheila swung.

The pan clanged against Ash's head.

"Shoulda....been more specific," he croaked out, the world turning into a canvas of throbbing white stars. He recovered his equilibrium quickly, inspiration seizing him. He reached up, grabbed a knife, and plunged it into the cheese's back. It howled an unearthly sound as Ash leapt to his feet and unceremoniously jammed the cheese into the open flame.

"WHAT A WORLD! WHAT A WORLD!" It howled as it melted away into a pile of bubbly green goo.

Ash smirked down at it. "How's about a little fire, scarecrow?"

Sheila stared at the mess before her, getting up from the floor. "What sort of bedevilment is this, milord?"

 

"Damned if I know." He wiped his cheese-crusted metal hand against his knee. "It came from the gift basket our neighbor gave us."

"We must remove it from the dwelling!" she worried.

"There's nothing left," Ash said wearily. "Everything else smelled weird, so I tossed it out."

"Milord..." she reached for his arm. "Something is dreadful amiss."

"I know," he grimaced. "Nothing we can do about it 'til tomorrow," he said. A grim smile crossed his face as he laid eyes on the Necronomicon, which lay out on the kitchen counter. "When you and me're gonna go visiting."


	7. Part Sept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash tries to research his little problem - and as always, books extend him no good will.

Ash and education had never been merry bedfellows. He trudged into the American Library with heavy feet, pushing Jake's stroller before him, the Nec carried securely in a backpack.

It was an institution that combined the whitewashed sophistication of the ru du General Camou and the necessary functionality of a modern library. Ash plunked himself down on a chair in front of a computer and began to pluck out search strings, searching for a translation engine.

"Sss," Ash murmured to Jake. "Let's keep this quiet, slugger." He figured simply reading the words silently couldn't get them into much trouble. After struggling and fiddling about, Ash finally found an online translator that could transform ancient dialects to English. A few keystrokes and they were off.

He stared in horror at what the screen brought up.

"In the year two thousand one, the chosen faced a battle of epic proportion. His enemy was determined - a man and a woman cloaked in darkness, filled with an unholy desire to rule the world. The battle ardent. It is now not known if he perished in the fight..." An eyebrow. "Fuckin' book. Even it doesn't have any faith in me..." The only one that seemed to was Sheila, bless her little heart.

His phone rang, and dread streaked through Ash. Sheila never called him in the middle of the day unless it's a major emergency. "What happened?"

"Ashley!" the desperation tightened his stomach into a throbbing knot. "The school, to the school!"

The reception had gotten fuzzy. "What happened?"

"Someone broke in. Emily has been taken!" At that point their connection fuzzed out completely.

Ash grabbed Jake; there was no way he could drop the boy off at a sitter's. "We're going for a run, kid," he declared, grabbing the backpack. His stroller could be retrieved later.


	8. Part Huit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily's kidnapper is revealed to be an oddly familiar face.

Ash arrived at a scene that was, in simple terms, utterly chaotic. The walls were coated in swathes of blood, desks had been overturned, and a row of windows had been shattered. His boots crunched against broken glass as he entered the room, only to be rebuffed by a gendarme, who spoke a streak of French a mile loud at top volume.

Ash shoved the man out of the way when he heard Sheila calling for him. "Ashley," she panted, managing to part the crowd of confused parents. "They have her, they have our girl!"

He didn't need to ask her who 'they' were. His jaw set grimly as he took in the chaos around them. "Go home, there's a samurai sword on the top shelf. Don't open the door or go near any windows." Sheila's eyebrow rose. "It was easier to get a sword," he growled, handing the baby over to her. "Keep an eye on him, okay."

"I shall not allow thee to do this alone," Sheila growled. "Ye shall need my assistance, milord, the Wiseman said..."

"Are you nuts? This is almost too dangerous for me, let alone you..." Sheila glared up at him. "You're not gonna back down, are ya?" Sheila shook her head. "Who's gonna watch the baby?"

"I'll watch him," Lily offered. "Poor little guy." The teacher cuddled the boy. "I'll introduce you to a special friend of min called Feelie, the Share Bear!"

"Thankyee, Madame teacher," Sheila said, and Lily ignored Sheila's bow to play more with Jake.

"I don't believe I pay money to send Emily to this school," he growled. The very thought of his young daughter galvanized Ash's determination. "If you're coming for me, you're gonna look out for yourself, lady. Got it?"

Sheila nodded firmly. "Aye."

"We'll pick him up after midnight," he told Emily's teacher.

"You're gonna take that long?" worried Lily.

"Probably longer," Ash lifted his chin. "First off, you and me're getting tricked out."

"What is this 'tricked out'?" Sheila asked, as they ran out the back enterence.

"You'll see," he grinned. And she gulped at the slightly manic expression on his face.

***

Emily glared at the berobed woman who had tied her to the bed in the dingy apartment. "Now just sit still and be a good girl. This will be over very quickly."

She gloweed up at them. "I'm not afraid of you! My daddy's gonna come get you!"

The red-covered woman held out a small dagger. "Your daddy's not going to get here. You've eaten some of the cheese, the enchanted cheese that will cause your blood to flow red and rich..."

"No I didn't," Emily frowned.

The woman stopped. "You did. I gave some to your father to feed to you."

"He burnt it all up!" Emily said viciously. "Just like he's gonna tear you up."

The man standing at the foot of her bed rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter!" He grabbed Emily's arm and plunged the dagger lightly into it, drawing blood, which dripped lightly into the chalice while the girl shrieked in pain. "Quickly, the incantation."

Her once-trusted neighbors bowed their heads over their (mimeographed) copy of the unholy book, making a circle in Emily's blood around a. The earth began to tremble, the windows began to shake...and...the teddy bear began to move on its own.

The teddy bear began to talk. "I...live!" it said, in a heavy French accent.

"It lives!" shrieked the woman. "Oh great and powerful dead one, please teach us the ways of our dark lord so that we might serve it bet..." Her voice died as it slashed her ear-to-ear. The man was gut-sliced, his intestines spilling out in a hot pile at his feet.

"So," the bear turned, holding the blood sacrificial knife between its paws. "You are ze chosen's child." It seemed to smile as Emily shivered. "Quite useful. Perhaps the only useful thing these fools ever did in service to Kandar!"

"Who are you?" Emily asked, brave though trembling, her wound staunching itself with surprising quickness.

"Ahh, my fame has been diminished in the years since my death." She untied Emily's wrists and her feet. "Have you not heard of Edith Piaf? The songbird of France?" She began to sing a bar of La Vie En Rose, but Emily showed no recognition. "Children. Pah!" she spat on the ground. "No matter, for you will soon know my name child." It grinned evilly and dragged Emily off the bed, toward the closet and out of the apartment through a secret passageway.


	9. Part Neuf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash girds himself for the next battle

Ash was, as Emily had predicted, only a step or two behind her captors. He kicked down the Smithson's front door moments after the demonic bear had slaughtered the cultists. Sheila muffled a cry at the sight of the two bodies crumpled to the ground, and the symbols drawn onto the floor in what seemed to be blood.

He pushed Sheila behind him as he scanned the desks and walls for anything that might detail their plans. He was the one who spied the scattered pages of the Necronomicon, the same ones he'd seen in the library's computer.

Ash balled them up in his fist, letting out a sound of muted grief. "No," he muttered. "My God, no..."

Sheila's nails bit into his upper arm. "We must not panic. Remember yourself to Emily."

He got what she was trying to tell him, in spite of the archaic barrier of languages. She was Emily, an incredibly tough cookie; she would take care of herself until they could vanquish the Big Bad Evil.

Sheila picked a map up off of the table on their way out. "The cemetery," Sheila said, "they are meant for the cemetery!"

He squeezed her hand. "We'll get her. But first wee need heavy artillery," Ash said. "Our place. It should only take a couple of minutes."

Sheila pursed her lips, then gave a quick nod of her head. In less than a minute, they were back in the apartment, and Ash was rummaging through closets to find supplies.

"What shall we do without thy boomstick?" she fretted.

"We'll live," Ash replied. "They may have gun laws out the ass in this country..." He heaved two chainsaws into the kitchen. "Don't have any laws against these yet, though." Ash sat down at the table and began to gut the chainsaw.

Sheila rushed out to the car, returning with a small extra can of petrol. She began pouring the reserve into small glass vials, which she then hung from her belt loop.

"Whatt're you doing?" Ash asked, without looking up.

"Creating what ye call gas bombs," she smiled, and he rose a brow at her. "Arthur hath passed on thy knowledge in thy absence."

"Great." Images of serfs pitching modified gasoline at one another entered Ash's brain, and he quickly shook it off. "D'you know how to do anything that's effective at close range?'

"I have some skill with a knife."

"Yeah? Show me." He instantly regretted saying that when a steak knife sliced through the air, embedding itself into the flesh of an apple perched atop their fruit basket. He rose a brow as he finished tightening the screws. "Whoever said marriage is boring never had to deal with Deadites."

She gave him a near smile as she plucked the knife from the apple. "Shall we?"

"Just a sec..." he clicked the chainsaw into place, smirking as he revved it. "Ohh yeah. Now that's what I'm talkin' about!"

Downstairs, a neighbor knocked against the floor, and Ash jammed the chainsaw through the floorboards, carving a small hole. Sheila and Ash stared down into the gap, and he waved down at their elderly neighbor, who shouted invective up at them in French. Ash powered down the chainsaw and grabbed Sheila's arm, the two of them rushing down and out of the apartment.

"Daddy's back," he growled.

***

Emily, as her father predicted, was a brave solider. The demon that held her had tied her to a slab of concrete in an abandoned mausoleum at the Cimitiere du Pere-Lachaise. She watched at the bear anointed a pewter hark decoration crowning a casket with her blood. The hawk stretched and yawned, extending its brass wings, blinking its cobalt eyes.

"Where...the...hell...am...I, man?" it asked.

"Welcome to the waking world again, James," smirked the bear. "A refreshing change from hell, ne'ce'pas?"

"Yeah. So, what's up, chick?"

"Bring me the son of the chosen," it sneered. "We shall use him as a vessel to bring the God Th'mezolop to life! And when he reigns in chaos on this weak planet, we shall be his consorts."

"You like thinking big, Edie."

"I pride myself on it. Now fly, my pretty." The bird flapped away, and out the front entrance. "As for you, my child, your blood shall serve us..." she grinned maniacally. "...While your body cannot..."


	10. Part Dix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A showdown atop the Eiffel Tower.

Ash's tread upon the cement sidewalk with firm intent. He wanted the monster to know it was him, wanted it - whatever it was - to know he wasn't going to down without a fight. No, he wasn't going to go down period.

"We take a right here," he said to Sheila. He could feel her nails cutting into his hand, but the small pain was a minimal buzz in the back of his head. "All right?" he added. The cemetery was in view, as were the swirling, dark clouds above it.

Her expression turned rock-firm, and she gave his hand a squeeze. "Aye."

He tucked the pull-string for his chainsaw into the slot on his holster. "Don't lose sight of me."

"I should never take mine eyes from thee, milord," she insisted, in a tone that would have made him smile under different circumstances. Instead a pall of grimness fell over his features.

"The crypt they marked off is over there," Ash pointed to a series of sunken steps, leading into a large cement mausoleum. They marched into the cemetery, side-by-side, and down the steps.

"If it goes bad," Ash told her, "y'know what to do."

Sheila nodded her head stiffly, and so Ash proceeded to gain their entrance. He tried to boot down the door but it wouldn't give. "Gonna play hard to get, honey?" he smirked and began to Sheila winced as another chunk of metal hit the ground, this one inches from her feet. Ash, focused on the task before him, muttered to himself as he pounded against the cement. With a groan, the door began to crumble, and he pushed her back from the shower of debris.

"Daddy!" Emily shouted from within; relief filled Ash. She sounded pissed; she sounded ALIVE. He could see her trying to look up from the cement block she was splayed across, that she looked unnaturally pale and that she had been tied down.

"Emily! Baby, don't move!" He didn't want to let go of Sheila, so he moved them cautiously toward the stone tablet, dragging her behind him.

It was a trick. Of course it was a trick.

He only wished the teddy bear gouging a hole into his thigh with a dagger were one, too.

Ash fell to his knees, howling in pain, and the bear twisted the knife once before withdrawing it. "Chosen One," it grinned. "We meet!"

"What the hell are you?" he growled.

It sneered. "My reputation has been lost to the ages, has it not?"

"Think I'd remember some freak version of Snuggle the Bear," Ash growled.

"My name," the bear snarled, "is Edith Piaf."

"As in the snooty French singer?" he asked.

An evil smirk. "The same. When I lost my life, I vowed to Kandar that I would be an agent of its evil if it would allow me time on Earth for one final try at immortal glory. Through the Smithson's misplaced greed, I was returned to the living world. Though this body is less than worthy, I have found a vessel that will bring our mighty God, bringer of all life to Kandar, back to the world of the living!"

Ash's eyes widened. He KNEW. "You rotten bitch..."

She smiled. "Bring forth the potential!"

He heard Jake's whimpering before he could see the child, ensconced in the arms of Emily's teacher, both of them being pushed forward by a winged demon with long hair and surprisingly piercing eyes.

"Who the hell are you?" Ash growled.

"Name's Morrison." He smirked. "Rock god."

Ash didn't expect Sheila's quick reaction, but he let out an approving grunt when she brought her foot forward, slamming it into the bear and sending it careening across the room. "Give me my son!" she ordered the demon.

"No can do, lady of the chosen," he said. "This kid's our ticket to Kandar's supreme domination of this crust of mud and dirt."

"What...makes you think...we're gonna let that happen?" Ash grunted, fire slicing through his flesh. Fuck, what the hell had that dagger been dipped into?

"You're not going to stop us now, Chosen; you're going to aid us."

Ash's eyes widened. "No..." He felt a too-familiar wave of dizziness. _Oh shit, oh shit..._

"Soon, you'll be one of us."

"NO." His eyes shot down to his wound. _Black. Black Blood, black webbing its way up from the wound._

His gaze flew up to Sheila's face, able to register the panic in her features before he collapsed into the darkness.

 

***

 _The heat and rock-hard floor of Kandarian hell were familiar to Ash as he landed upon the surface with a thud. Without even opening his eyes, he knew where he was, and what the distant clicking sound he heard meant._

It stopped abruptly. "Oh no. No way!"

He opened his eyes to see the flame-drenched office of Bob Goldenrod, official in charge of the Ashley Williams case.

As in all evil organizations and hedge money schemes, Kandarian hell was well-organized. Every (allegedly) hell-bound individual had a person in charge of their (alleged) eternal damnation, and Bob was Ash's guy. "Hey Bob. Long time no see."

"What the hell did you do this time?" He flipped through the papers he'd accumulated over the past ten years.

"Edith Piaf's in a teddy bear," that was all Ash wanted to or needed to say.

A long sigh. "If I don't let you go back, you're going to kick my ass, aren't you?"

Ash smirked, climbing to his knees. "Kick it? I'm gonna rip it into bits and then take a piss on it."

Goldenrod rolled his eyes. "Always so feisty, Williams. You know the routine - look into the light..."

There was indeed an ever-widening light over Goldenrod's head. It grew bigger and wider under Ash's jaundiced eyes, until it consumed him...

***

His wife was kneeling over him. Ash smiled up at the sight...until he saw the knife in her hand.

He shouted, rolling out of the way of the sword just before it connected with his head. "IT'S ME, I'M ALL RIGHT!"

"Prove it unto me!" She shouted through her tears, trying to pin his shoulders to the ground with her knees.

"You...YOU HAVE A BIRTHMARK ON YOUR RIGHT HIP! YOUR MIDDLE NAME IS ALAIS! WHEN YOU COME YOU MAKE THIS WEIRD SQUEAKING NOISE!" He squeezed his eyes shut, preparing for a final blow that didn't come. What he did feel was a sharp sting as she slapped him.

"Dinna do that to me again!" she cried out, showering his face with kisses.

A tiny bit of relief flooded Ash's features. "Babe, we've gotta stop meeting like this," he said, sitting up.

"Thy wound!" Sheila worried.

He glanced down at his calf - the wound had turned pure right. "It's gone," he muttered, and pushed her away. "Where did they go?"

"The creature I slew," she said, pointing over her shoulder. Ash raised an impressed brow at her carnage - somehow she had pinned the bat creature through with a kitchen knife, into one of the sconces of oil flaming against the wall, allowing it to smolder and blaze in the shadows.

"Remind me never to piss you off," Ash remarked. "Did they say where they were going?"

"The highest point in Paris," Sheila remarked.

And they both knew where and what that was. "The Eiffel," Ash said. "it has to be the place. Let's go..." He heard a suspicious moan come from the bier he'd rolled up against. Peeling one eye upward, Ash glanced over his shoulder as the stone coffin lid began to roll back.

"It hath misspoken the words! Hell is unleashed!" Sheila cried.

There wasn't time to breathe after that as they hack-and slashed their way through a Paris rapidly descending into chaos. He left part of his shirt and half a liter of blood littered across the landscape - Sheila had been cut across the thigh, her pants torn, her blouse a lost cause. Somewhere along the way, Ash lost any fear he'd harbored of something awful happening to Sheila; her mother's instincts had been uncorked, her feral passion to find the children and rescue them driving her to acts of violence that pleased Ash in their violent thoroughness.

By the time they reached the Eiffel, half the city seemed to be dead; together, he and Sheila killed the Deadite-ified elevator operator, and hit the switch that would carry them to the top floor.

At the very top of the tower, tied to a bench, was their daughter, and when she saw Ash she turned bright white, as if she had seen a ghost. He didn't want to know what she'd seen; he couldn't focus on it yet, anyway.

The bear had Jake balanced upon a railing, ready to fall at any minute past the, holding him at gunpoint.

"Chosen," muttered the bear. "Such an impressive display of fortitude. A pity you'll meet your maker so..." it clicked the safety off, "ignominiously.

Sheila, who had moved to comfort Emily, saw the moment she had been waiting for. While Ash kicked away the gun, she dove for Jake, grabbing him against her breast and rolling to the ground.

The bear, of course, had other plans; it still bore the Kandarian dagger, and the spells as backup. Ash, at least, knew how to duel, and chainsaw beats dagger...most of the time.

Piaf was a dirty, inventive fighter. Ash had his hand filled with her as they battled their way across the observation deck, making inventive use of the binocular stands.

Under the rush of his battle-heated blood, he heard his wife calling. "The words!" Sheila shouted. "Say the words, Ashley!"

He flung a glance over his shoulder as he parried a blow to his right arm.

"DOETH NOT KNOW THE WORDS?"

"I KNOW 'EM, I KNOW 'EM ALL RIGHT!" he bellowed back, dodging and thrusting.

"OPEN THE PORTHOLE! RID US OF THE FOUL BEAST!"

The bear chuckled. "You fool! He doesn't remember the incantation!" it laughed. "You've doomed yourself and your family, chosen! Now watch as I make the world suffer!"

He snarled. "Gonna have to do it standing over my grave, fluffy," Ash growled. There was just enough time between sallies for him to rev the saw and separate the bear's arm from its shoulder. Instead of stuffing, it spewed black, bilious fluid as it howled its unnatural pain. Ash seized the Kandarian dagger from the ground and, with great force, pinned it down between the railing's slats. A surge of hope filled him as the creature struggled; that should pin it down for long enough for him to loosen Emily's bonds and get them out of here.

Emily cowered in fear when he approached. "Baby, it's daddy," he said firmly, so that she wouldn't fight as he struggled to untie the ropes.

"BUT YOU DIED!" she sniffled.

He ran a hand through her hair _she's so much like her mother,_ he thought. "D'you think I'd let a mean teddy bear get between me and you? Huh?" she managed to giggle. "It's me, I'm okay? I swear," he said, untying the final rope. Emily bounded up, throwing both arms around his neck, and he indulged her a brief hug before handing her to Sheila.

"Go inside!" he pointed to the relative safety of the elevator. Then he turned toward the bear and said, with great, heavy deliberation. "KLATUU - VERATA...."

But Sheila stood behind him. She grabbed him by the collar before he even had time to panic over the word missing from his memory bank. _"Nicctu!"_ she hissed into his ear.

He flung a look at her. "That doesn't sound right," he growled.

"The book says those are the words!" she snapped.

"Baby..." Sheila's eyes bore holes into his form. She meant business; she would probably remove his head from his shoulders if he gainsaid her again. "All right! But this time it's on you!" He planted his feet as she took the children, ducking instead in a small, protected alcove made by a row of iron benches. "KLATUU...VERATA.... NICCTU!"

The wind picked up violently before Ash had finished the incantation; a vortex appeared, swirled, and began to pull everything in sight inside of it; he grabbed onto and clung to one of the iron girders suspended over his head. The bear's smug expression changed, and it wiggled free of the dagger's piercing, grabbing it in its good paw and making one last vicious charge. "DIE!" it squeaked, just before it was picked up from the ground and pulled into the vortex.

Ash let out a triumphant laugh. "Who's the dumb one now, huh?!" he shouted; to his relief the vortex began to recede. When it finally faded to a sputter he released his grip on the beam and turned to see Sheila watching him, her arms around the children. "God, I -"

Then a gust of wind shoved Ash backward, knocking his head into the girder with a clang and turning the world black.

***

As he floated back to consciousness, Ash kept his eyes firmly pressed shut. The last thing he wanted to do was wake up in a world without modern convince, or worse, a world without other people.

Her voice drew him back to the world. "Ashley!" Sheila called, and her warm hands caressed his face. He forced his eyes to open and focus on her lovely face looming over him.

"Hey, baby," he said. Sheila threw himself upon his chest, bursting into tears. "Hey, now..." he soothed. Then Emily's arms were around his neck. "Toldja it would be okay."

"Ye were magnificent," Sheila said, rising, wiping her eyes. "A miracle of masculine fortitude."

"Thanks," Ash said, barely able to understand what she mant. He sat up gingerly and limped to his feet - there was the calf pain, retuning with a vengeance now that his adrenalin had ceased to flow. A gendarme called to him in halting French, but Ash didn't want to do anything but get the hell away from the place. Sheila returned fire, her French rapid and sharp, and he rose his chin, a gesture of respect, allowing them to enter the elevator and descend.

The rest of Paris was a mess, but it would be salvageable. Piles of unidentifiable multi-colored ooze hissed in various places on the landscape; Sheila sidestepped one, leading Emily around another. They saw a panicked Miss Lily at the newsstand with her husband.

"I'm so glad they're all right - and I'm so sorry!" she cried out. "They knocked us out and tied us together."

"Tis well," Sheila declared. "Ye were released but seem much delayed. What occurred?"

Lily smiled. "It took us longer than we thought we would to get free."

"Why?" Sheila wondered.

"They tied us up face-to-face," Marshall threw in, a big grin spreading across his face.

Sheila tushed Ash before he could say anything, and they made their way back to the apartment. "Why would they be happy 'cause of that?" Emily asked, "it sounds so gross. I bet she could smell his tuna breath."

Ash threw back his head and truly laughed for the first time that day.

***

It took three stories and a cookie snack for Emily to calm down and fall asleep. Ash sat by her bed and watched her sleep, frowning at the long bandage they'd wrapped upon her hand. Sheila's hand rested upon his shoulder, and he gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Jake sleeps," she said. "We should wash and to bed."

He watched her. "She's so small," he said finally. "How could she live through all of that without being scarred for life?"

"She is her father's child," said Sheila, succinctly. But Ash kept watching his daughter, until his wife pulled him from the room and to the bathroom. As she began to strip off his ruined shirt, Sheila's shoulders trembled, and Ash wedged a finger beneath her chin. "Hey," he said. "I'm all right."

"Twas a close call, as he say," Sheila whispered. "I saw ye die, Ashley..."

"Didn't stay that way," he said. "Y'know, don't you?"

"What?"

"That I couldn't have done that without you." The washcloth hit the sink as she rose one suspicious brow at him. He sighed. "Okay, so I can't remember every tiny little syllable most of the time," he smiled. "The Wiseman was right, I needed you." He lowered his lips to her neck. "In more than one way..."

She smiled into his shoulder. "Tis...well done...Ashley!" she gasped. "D'oeth mean to make purpose with me in the water closet?"

He smirked, pulling her ruined pants down, her shirt off. Seating her on the sink, he allowed languid kisses to grow heated, for his mouth to find her breast.

"Tis indecent," she sighed, as his fingers insinuated themselves within her.

"Not when you're in love, baby," he said.

Fifteen minutes later, she made absolutely no sound of protest when he took her against the bathroom sink.

***

 _Four months later:_

"So that's the story," Ash said into the phone as he helped Emily put on her red sweater. "Got a commendation from Sarkozy."

"Right," said Ben. "And I guess I didn't see it on the news because you had to keep it hush hush."

"That's what they told me." Most of Ash's attention was on Emily as she put on her backpack. For the millionth time, he noticed the slim white scar on her hand and felt a great wave of angry shame.

"So, what time are you headed back in?"

A sigh. "I've got an interview at six. Seems like a formality, though. You guys missed me that much?"

"More like the last four guys in housewares bought it in two days. Gonna miss France?"

"No?"

"Gonna miss being stuck in the house all day?"

"HELL no."

"Great. Good to have you back, man."

Ash patted Emily's head as she headed out the door, to the honking of her school bus. He marveled in the smell of fresh paint, reveled in the sight of his son trying to feet himself applesauce for the first time. "Good to be back," he said.

He looked up. In the kitchen doorway stood his wife, with a small white plastic wand in her hand. Sheila's eyes held a familiar hope and terror that was etched into his being. He looked down at Jake and stroked his son's downy head, just once.

"Just in time. I think business is getting ready to pick up."

THE END


End file.
